Before the turn of the 20th century, Czarist Russia embarked upon the most unlikely
public works project of that or any other era: a railroad would be built across the vast
open lands of Siberia, and it would be built by men and horses, and the builders would be
the Russians themselves. It was an impossible task. But it was
done, with many a halt and restart, and many a failure and many a repair.

Today anyone can take the Trans-Siberian, and many do. Some are tourists, but most go on
business. The endless miles of miles and kilometers of kilometers limit its appeal to us
in these days of Internet Time. Yet there are things to write about. We could fill pages
and pages with the history of the railroad, its statistics,
its lines and its cars. We will not do that; others have already filled books with that
kind of thing.

We will write about the railroad that early tourists saw, and we'll write about the
weird things that had to be done to build this bizarre pathway through the swamps and
forests of Siberia. We'll take a few kilobytes to show Siberia in the past, and
occasionally the same Siberia in the present.

When the railroad opened it was used mainly by emigrants to Siberia; by government
officials; by the military; and by tourists. Among those early tourists, in 1901 (and the
railroad wasn't even quite finished yet) was a man named Burton Holmes. Holmes was soon
to be famous as a world traveler and lecturer on travels; but at this stage in his career
he was still new in the business, having taken over Stoddard's lecture tour only three
years previously.

Here on the Hidden Knowledge websites we have material in
homage to Burton Holmes and material in homage to the TSRR.
Holmes' trip is a good way to start to
learn about the railroad, for he had the benefit of whatever creature comforts there
were to be had on the line. And, in fact, the first-class train on the TSRR had been
specially ordered by the Russians from the finest coach builders in Europe, and lacked
nothing. It was going to represent the future of Russia, in all its glory as it might
be in the last years of the Czar.

Here's what we're going to do. We'll write about

* traveling in Siberia before the railroad existed
* construction of the railroad, with pictures and text
* what emigrants and tourists found
* the 1918-20 Intervention, and the Czech Legion
* links and background information
* some current news stories

Present-day operation of the railroad is another story, and other people
are telling it. This is the story of how it got where it is.

We present an article on the planning
and construction of the railroad, from
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN for August 26, 1899.
Kudos to Dave Morrison of Plainview, NY, who found the article and lent
it to us for scanning. More construction stories to come.

Or, imagine it's 1901; you can take a
trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad
with Burton Holmes, extraordinary traveler. Yet to come: pages and pictures
from Shoemaker's "The Great Siberian Railway" (1903) and Norman's
"All the Russias" (1904). Looks like a long and interesting trip ahead.

Trans-Siberian tribute index page originally created 7 December 1999;
most recent update 6 June 2011